


Anesthesia

by MimeticEternity



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt Alec Lightwood, Hurt Magnus Bane, Introspection, Liminal Space-y, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Mourning, brief mention of blood and violence, it's only reflected upon, the death does not occur during the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:39:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13200057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MimeticEternity/pseuds/MimeticEternity
Summary: He should have been able to save him.But he didn’t.





	Anesthesia

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by this prompt:
> 
> Imagine person A not being able to have a good holiday because everything reminds them of Person B, who broke up with them 6 months ago.

There was wine on the table. The scent of fall in the air. The twinkling fairy lights dripping off of the Institute's banisters only reminded Alec of the way his eyes had always shined. It had been so long since he’d looked into those eyes.

 

They were dancing. Jace and Clary.

 

Alec blinked as he realized that he’d lost himself again. The song was ending, but last he remembered it had just started. He smiled and applauded with the rest, remembering a night so similar to this one, a night when he had held his hand like Jace is holding Clary’s, when he had smiled so much his face had ached, when he’d kissed him so tenderly he thought his heart would burst.

 

Lost time again.

 

People are on the dancefloor now, Simon manning the DJ booth. A waiter passes by and Alec places his untouched champagne glass back onto the upheld tray.

 

Magnus had always liked champagne.

 

His eyes followed his abandoned glass until it was out of sight, lost among the crowd of smiling faces.

 

Drifting. A deep ache was starting to settle into his chest, and Alec clenched his jaw. _Not tonight. Please._

“Alec?”

 

There’s a gentle hand on his arm, and Alec inhales sharply. Izzy instantly loosened her already feather grip. “Are you okay?”

 

A thousand responses shriek through his mind, all of them honest, all of them bleeding, and none of them are:

 

“I’m fine.”

 

And yet.

 

He doesn’t quite hear what she says, her face already blurring in the ever present haze, but he imagines that her words were kind with pity lining their syllables.

 

There’s a solid wall at his back and a phantom weight on his finger, the only things that make it through the haze. There’s something devastatingly numb about the absence that Magnus left behind. An anesthetic that took too long to kick in, and now refuses to wear off. It’s better, Alec supposes, than feeling like a scissor blade is being dragged up and down every nerve of his body, agonizingly shaving off bits of himself to delicately curl and wither away, losing a little more of his sanity with every pass.

 

_Magnus._

Years pass in that haze, a solid wall at his back and a phantom weight on his finger. Pity laced words will always leave a copper tang bite on his tongue that will always remind him of that night and all the blood _blood_ **_blood-_**

****

It was his fault really. If he had been careful, more observant…if he had been _better…_

It didn’t matter that they were outnumbered ten-to-one. It didn’t matter that the demons were Edom-born, cunning and vicious and incredibly difficult to kill. It didn’t matter that Asmodeus himself had burned and broken his arm so viciously that not even the most talented of healers would ever be able to completely ease the pain.

 

He should have been able to save him.

 

But he didn’t.

 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

 

Alec looked up. When had Jace broken through the haze? He looked at Alec with tired eyes, a hand unconsciously digging nails into his hip. “Alec. It’s been years.”

 

A spark of something violent flickered in Alec’s blood, his eyebrows furrowing. “And?”

 

Jace jerked, not expecting the anger in his voice. “And nothing, Alec, I’m just worried about you that’s all-“

 

“Why are you here.”

 

Jace sighed, eyes lowering. “It’s just…Clary’s starting to get restless. She can’t sleep when I’m not with her and I haven’t been able to sleep for…” Jace’s nails dug deeper into his hip “…so long. It’s not good for the baby, and…”

 

He made a helpless gesture with his hand, looking up at Alec with pleading eyes. Alec felt the haze sharpening with a vicious clarity.

 

“What do you want me to do, Jace. What do you _expect_ me to do.”

 

The words grit past his teeth with enough tension to make every hair on Jace’s body stand on end, the air around them charged with something dangerous.

 

“Tell me, Jace. What, do you think that I can just turn it off? Turn it down so that you can get your beauty sleep? Stop praying for the Angel to just _take me_ so that I won’t have to face the shame of knowing that I let him down **_one last time?!_** _”_

There’s suddenly a grip on his arm – Izzy’s hand and Izzy’s voice trying to calm him down - and for the first time in too long a time, he _screams_.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been able to write anything for an entire year, so I can't believe I actually created something! I've been dying to contribute something to this fandom, and not being able to write anything for my all time OTP has been torture. Hopefully I'll be able to write more (less soul-crushingly angsty) stuff for malec in the future :)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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